. . . The mother of the writer Henry was an outstanding Australian in her own right. Married to a former Norwegian sailor turned goldminer then selector, she began a career as a journalist in Sydney in 1887.

In 1888 she started "Dawn," a journal owned, edited, printed and published solely by women, which for 17 years campaigned for feminist causes; and she convened a meeting that got the suffrage (votes for women) movement under way by formally constituting a women's association. She founded the journal "Young Australia" in 1898, and later published children's stories and poems.

HENRY HANDEL RICHARDSON,

1870-1946

. . . This was the pen-name of the Melbourne-born writer Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson. At first she had wanted to be a concert pianist and at 18 went to Leipzig, Germany, to further her musical studies. While there, however, she discovered that literature was her true love.

Alter marrying an English literary don, H.H.R. as her friends called her settled in

London and began work on her first novel,

"Maurice Guest."

Following a short visit to Australia in

1912, to retrace her childhood background. H.H.R. began her major work, a trilogy entitled "The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney." This was a thinly disguised account of her own father's life and tragic downfall as a pioneer doctor, and is still regarded as one of the showpieces of

Australian literature.

CATHERINE SPENCE, 1825-1910

. . . A journalist and social worker, she was

the author of "Clara Morison," the first novel written in Australia by a woman.

In the 1850s she campaigned for the voting system known as proportional representation, which gives small parties a

chance to win a few seats. Later she took up the votes for women cause.

It was partly due to her efforts that the South Australian Parliament passed legislation in 1872 aimed at placing destitute children with foster parents,

rather than in institutions.

CONSTANCE STONE, 1856-1902

. . . The first Australian woman to qualify

as a doctor, she had to obtain her medical

degrees in the United States and Canada,

as at that time Australian universities did not admit women medical students.

They had relaxed this rule by the time Dr Stone returned to her home city,

Melbourne, but women doctors were still not accepted by hospitals on the same basis as men. She established a private practice in Collins Street, and also started a free dispensary for poor women.

In 1896, with the help of her husband, Dr Egryn Jones, she, her sister Clara and

several other women doctors founded what was to become the Queen Victoria Hospital. Its beginnings were makeshift, but it developed into one of Melbourne's major hospitals. It was Australia's only hospital for women founded and staffed entirely by women.

TRUGANINI, 1812-1876

. . . The last of the full-blooded Tasmanian

Aborigines. She had early contact with white settlers and, with her charming personality, got on well with them.

After the infamous and unsuccessful

Black Drive, in which troops tried to herd all Aborigines into the south-east corner of Tasmania, Truganini went with a reformer named George Robinson on expeditions into the bush to persuade the blacks to give themselves up for organized settlement

schemes. On one occasion she saved his life.

Truganini joined one of the settlements, but tragically they all failed.